Truly gorgeous artstyle and juicy polish. Writing is energetic too with a cool setting. UI is very unclear though. Almost didn't actually play the game because I couldn't figure out how to start. Then I almost didn't play through the tutorial because it was drop dead boring. Not sure what the point of having to just press the button at a set rhythm for so long. Once the combat started I didn't understand that I was supposed to let the enemy play out their turn after mine. With this game structure, it's just crying out for a Paper Mario style ability to respond to an enemy attack on the beat instead of just waiting for them to hit you. The cooldowns on your own ability also seem redundant; just make the abilities more of an interesting decision. it was very hard to pay attention to what I was actually doing to the enemies because I was focused on the rhythm. Seemed to work out, though; the enemies kept dying. I quit at the second "Can you keep time" segment, but I hope to come back when you've developed this more, because it's dripping with potential.
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Disco Moon Girls's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Audio | #12 | 3.266 | 4.000 |
| Genre Mashup Incorporation | #16 | 2.858 | 3.500 |
| Originality/Creativity | #19 | 3.164 | 3.875 |
| Graphics | #19 | 3.470 | 4.250 |
| Magical Girl Concept | #20 | 3.062 | 3.750 |
| Overall | #21 | 2.916 | 3.571 |
| Engagement/Fun | #25 | 2.449 | 3.000 |
| Polish | #27 | 2.143 | 2.625 |
Ranked from 8 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
How does your game fit the Magical Girl Genre?
Akari, Midori, and Aoi are all magical girls under Disco Moon and fight monsters using their musical instrument-themed powers. They can also explode things.
Which genres from categories A and B did you choose?
Turn-based + Rhythm
How does your game mash those genres?
All attacks, moves, skills, etc. have to be executed to the beat of the music and more accurate timing results in stronger attacks and effects while missing the beat results in your attack missing. The rhythm game element is present at every moment of the battles, rather than being a side mechanic or minigame.
Were the graphics/audio assets for your game made during the jam?
Yes
Comments
I'm deeply conflicted about this game. It has a lot going for it, but it also shoots itself in the foot almost right out of the gate.
It took me an inordinately long time to actually get into the game because of the UI. It generally falls into the realm of "looks really neat, very hard to use". I found the layout often confusing and the font very hard to read. I kept getting stuck in screens not sure how to back out or move forward, and not sure what did what or even what was interactable. It doesn't seem to be consistent which key is confirm; sometimes it's ENTER, sometimes it's A. The initial animation when the menu comes up was super cool the first time, but annoyingly long every time after. The options menu is badly bugged; it doesn't seem to register clicks correctly at all.
The title card is really nice, though.
I only played a bit of the first level; I'd wasted so much time getting there that I didn't have any left to actually play the game. I was very impressed by the visuals and overall presentation- the art is great and the whole thing looks slick. But the rhythm gameplay really falls flat; the notes don't really seem to correspond to the beat, I'm just watching a bar move and tapping when it hits the middle. I also failed it and had to retry; why is this a thing in the tutorial at all? There also doesn't seem to be any indicator showing how I'm doing. I got bored very quickly, I was expecting maybe a screen or two before the next mechanic was introduced
To be clear, the advertised gameplay sounds really cool, and maybe the rhythm elements are better integrated in later levels, but as far as I can tell (points at UI issues) you can't skip the tutorial and have to slog through it, which I just don't have time to do.
The game also lags a bit, and the music stutters a lot. I'm not on a weak system, either: this is a gaming laptop with a Ryzen 7 5800H and an RTX 3060.
In a lot of ways this game is super quality. The graphics are impressive and it looks professional overall. But there are a few utterly baffling design decisions that, while they might have been well-intentioned, totally sour the experience.
Game looks really cool. Sadly there are a few frustrating problems. The UI is confusing to navigate, it's not obvious that to interact you have to press the same direction twice. There are also random stutters that slow down the game for several seconds. Once you figure out how to get into the first tutorial, well, all I know is for a simple tutorial it goes on for a very long time, almost making me think the game was glitched. So if the tutorial ever does end, I can tell you it's a bit too long.
It's really a shame that I lost my patience in the tutorial, from the page and animated screenshot it looks amazing. If you update it and fix some issues I'd love to try it again :)
The art and music are wonderful, but the UI has some real problems. I have no idea how to get past the stage select screen! I select the tutorial and am presented with moves to swap, but there's nothing to indicate how to get past that point.
The artwork is amazing, from character to scene to ui, perfectly shows the energetic vibe under disco theme. You even have a trasition effect., which for me is a luxury for a game jam submission. The music is good and you have quite number of it. Impressive.
However there are some problems.
I stuck at stage 8, there is no dialogue and the battle doesn't start, is it the wip part? And the tutorial 1 is too long.as long as i know how to hit the beat, it should be next. The battle system is hard to understand. i figure out that actions have cool down time, but i can't figure out the strategy to use actions. So far i just press random action on beat and finish a battle by luck. The dialogue system also has a problem. I would prefer the first clicking should skip the text effect and show the full sentence, now it just skip the sentence. And as a player who usually skips story (sorry), i would prefer there is an empty time after dialogue finished.
The controls are quite innovative and there is plenty of potential to flesh out this type of gameplay, I am really into it. I think this is a true rhythm + turn-based mash up to the core, where what actions you choose to do is done on the beat itself, kind of like Crypt of the Necrodancer but Disco Moon Girls is really more of a turn-based RPG (like able to customize abilities) and that’s an awesome concept. The title screen and menus managed to impress me as well, it is unique and really gives a stylish, funky rhythm game vibe.
There are some ambiguities that this game needs to address in its gameplay. When I first played it, I wasn’t so sure that the direction determines the move. I had a rough idea but I thought I would be selecting it beforehand or something. This can be alleviated with better UI indicating the controls, having actual arrows to indicate it (e.g. up arrow = Blast), and a better tutorial. I was also a bit puzzled on what Swap does; at first I assumes it swaps the target of my attack. As I played on, it seems that the only time I got to use it was in Tutorial 2 with the Granny. I was also confused on whether or not all of this affects the enemy’s choice of target, and my choice of target during the attacks.
The above confusion is worsened when there are times where I just suddenly lose and have to retry, even though I had plenty of HP. Sometimes my attacks miss even though it is on beat. Cooldown refresh time feels like it runs at a slower pace than normal. There needs to be some indication when attempting to use an ability that is on cooldown: play a sound, skip the turn, so it feels more responsive - no second chances on hitting the beat. One gripe I also have is that pressing a button skips the dialogue even though it hasn’t finished displaying all the letters yet; I would very much like a skip to the end of dialogue function rather than entirely skipping it outright. One thing I didn’t like was also the do-nothing run 5 laps (stage 7) after the sure-lose boss fight, it doesn’t feel like it fits the flow of the game; perhaps this can be moved to an earlier stage as a warm-up. The gameplay lacks a lot of polish in these ways, but I enjoyed playing it.
In future, perhaps more mechanics can be included to spice up the gameplay. Maybe have some instances where the player needs to hold down the button instead of tapping it, or instances where player is forced to react, swap or make quick decisions by telegraphing enemy attacks. Or, switch to a defense phase during enemy’s turn so the player can also do something about it. I would very much like to see positioning mechanics being added in as well and would love to see how you tie it with the rhythm mechanics. Just throwing more ideas: maybe there might even be a party member that allows double at-the-same-time rhythm; since you are using red color for the enemy beat, maybe use a color for ally beat and the player needs to worry about their own beat and their party members’ beat.
Haha! I’m going on a tangent here, but it really is an interesting game with great potential. I look forward to seeing it being developed further. Good luck!
Thank you very much for the detailed feedback! A lot of the unpolished things came down to development pacing being a bit all over the place, haha.
We’ll be putting out a few updates soon to address what you’ve brought up, so again, thank you for the feedback. I think this might be the best, most actionable feedback I’ve gotten on a game period lol.
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